Look! Suddenly Republicans Don’t Hate the IRS

Big legislation passes Congress, creating new responsibilities for the Internal Revenue Service. Congressional conservatives have a simple answer: slash spending for the agency to cripple a new measure they couldn’t defeat.

That’s what happened seven years ago after enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

Now those IRS bashers now are trying to undo the damage they caused in support of another piece of legislation: the Republican tax cut. That’s because the under-resourced IRS they helped create might imperil public confidence in their complicated and poorly drafted measure.